Mothers and daughters have a special place in my heart, because I am a daughter and more importantly, because I am a mother to only daughters. So it might come as no surprise to you that I have a mini obsession with vintage "Mommy and Me" outfits.

Since Mom's are pretty important to their daughters, it's also not surprising that Mommy and Me outfits have been around for a long time - Celebrity moms have always loved coordinating mother daughter clothing! Joan Crawford has become infamous for the matching outfits she wore with her daughter, Christina. But other mothers and daughters (without such tumultuous relationships) have also been known to wear matching or coordinating outfits! Katie Holmes, Madonna, Lauren Bacall, Shirley Maclaine, and Judy Garland, just to name a few.

Oddly, we don't see matching outfits on mothers and daughters in products or print advertisements anymore. I wonder if that is a statement on society or if it was just something that the world decided was no longer in style. What do you think ended the love affair with "mommy and me" outfits?

There used to be Mother and Daughter costume paper dolls!

Mother and daughter matching knits were VERY popular and all of the yarn companies had pattern books exclusively for them at one time or another.

Mothers and their daughters dressed alike for parties, holidays, and special occasions.

Even matching mother daughter hats, gloves, and handbags became very popular!

Matching Mother Daughter aprons were all the rage in mid century America!

Pattern Books were filled with matching mother daughter dresses.

Sometimes entire families wore matching outfits (not always with the best results). From TV families like the Partridge Family to real life Moms and dads, matching family fashions have also been around for quite some time!

But since it's almost Mother's day, let's stick with the moms. There could be books written behind the psychology of why mothers want to dress like their little girls. But what interests me even more, is how advertisers have used that relationship to sell products - They have used matching mothers and daughters to sell PAJAMAS -

During World War II, ads even featured matching mother and daughter fashions for precision products, asking questions like; "Mother, when will you stay home again?" and "Mother, is your job at Adel important?"

But once the war was nearly over, the images changed quite dramatically. The "Yes I Can" women were replaced with women, back in aprons, performing pre-war duties. The post war images of matching mothers and daughters had a powerful message about women's roles and what would be expected of the women who would be leaving the work force and what would be expected of the little girls who looked just like them, when they grew up. These ads subtly and not so subtly announced that women would be expected to:

1. CLEAN

Vintage Hoover Vacuum ad matching mother and daughter

2. COOK

3. SEW or knit.. and knit.. and knit..

4. SHOP

5. Take care of everything else, but also find time to develop a TALENT

So did we stop wanting to be like our moms? Or did the world finally realize that matching outfits doesn't make a little girl into a carbon copy of her mother? Maybe it's just as simple as - they went out of style, and I am over-thinking it. Still, I like to imagine what the images would look like in magazine ads today, if mothers and daughters still wore matching dresses! Would they both be on their cell phones, (sad), running a marathon, working at the same office, or in a spin class together? I LOVE mommy and me dresses, but my daughters are passed the age of compliance! We wear matching pajamas during the holidays and that's about as far as it goes. I hope we haven't seen the end of matching mother daughter outfits, but I hope that we wear them with the spirit of fun, knowing that our daughters are much, much more than miniature versions of ourselves!